I was sixteen years old when I took a pill for the first time. Everyone was doing it. In the moment I thought it was the cool thing to do, the thing that everyone else was doing. But it became so much more. Slowly but surely, it became my escape from a dark reality. This reality being me watching my grandmother heave over the toilet day in and day out, because her cancer medication made her more and more ill as the days passed. This reality was me watching my father abuse my mother. This reality was feeling socially rejected. This was what I called life, and the medicine cabinet was there, when no one else was. Once the pills were gone, I got desperate. I stole from friends, family members, and people close to me. I burnt bridges left and right…until I had none left to burn. 

It was my 21st birthday. I remember it like it was yesterday. My girlfriend had just given birth to my second son. It was a hot July afternoon, and pills were nowhere in sight. I needed them. I was completely dependent, sweat pooling on my forehead, and a knot in my stomach made me feel even more desperate than I had ever been before. Why couldn’t I just live in that moment, have cake and celebrate with my family? Instead, I walked down to the corner and stuck a needle filled with heroin in my arm for the first time ever. I experienced a feeling like I never had before. I was hooked. Heroin became the reason I existed. It was the only reason I woke up each morning.